Chapter Text
The clan has never let Mikoto forget that she’s only half-Uchiha. From the moment she’s born, she’s been looked down upon, considered “lesser,” simply because of a rumor that the Sharingan of non-full-blooded Uchiha are weaker.
She hates that rumor. Hates that she is looked down on for something she cannot control, because for this clan, power is everything. It doesn’t matter that Mikoto’s a prodigy, it doesn’t matter that her mother’s the Daimyo’s daughter, that in any other situation she would have every reason to be proud of her heritage - no, just because her mother has the audacity to be non-Uchiha, she is somehow lesser.
It would’ve been easy for her to hate her mother along with the rest of the clan. Her father does - he married Mikoto’s mother solely for financial purposes and discarded her when she served her purpose. But Mikoto loves her mother - she’s kind and lovely and graceful, with a spine of steel and a dangerous glint in her eye when angered. She resolves to make her clan regret casting her aside and make them beg on bended knee.
Mikoto graduates the Academy at seven and awakens her Sharingan at eight in the midst of battle. She is the youngest yet to awaken her Sharingan, and suddenly she finds herself rising in the clan hierarchy. It’s satisfying, but it’s not enough - she needs to rise higher, become indisputably the best. She’ll make them regret ever thinking of her or her mother as lesser.
And she does. In the Second Shinobi War, she gains the moniker Hiyruu Hime after a thousand hours of painstaking practice. She sheds blood, sweat, and tears in her rise to the top. She’s the best part of her mother, what her mother could’ve been had she been a shinobi and not a Daimyo’s daughter.
She becomes one of the most feared Konoha kunoichi on the battlefield. It’s immensely gratifying, seeing her Bingo Book entry grow ever-longer, and yet she’s still not satisfied. The clan respects her now, but the elders don’t.
Mikoto’s angry - she doesn’t know what more she can do, what more she can achieve. What will it take for the elders to acknowledge her?
She’s fifteen years old and so, so angry. She grows ever faster, stronger, better, but none of it is enough. The elders still ignore her, and it burns. On the outside, she is calm and gentle and placid, but within, she is a raging inferno.
~
When she first meets Uchiha Fugaku, she hates him. He is the clan heir and has had everything handed to him on a silver platter. He’s never had to work for something a day in his life. She’s not obvious about it, not to others, but Fugaku clearly senses something amiss, because he pulls her aside one day and asks about it. She denies it at first, but he’s persistent, and something inside her snaps.
“Fine!” she hisses, voice dripping venom. “Fine, yes, you’re right, I do dislike you.”
His face is unreadable. “May I ask why?”
Her lips twist with disdain. “Because everything’s so easy for you,” she snarls. “You’re the clan heir, the elders love you, the clan respects you - I have worked my entire life for just a fraction of what you have without trying, do you understand how incredibly unfair that is?”
“I do,” Fugaku says softly, and Mikoto’s taken aback, but he’s not done.
“You’re right. It’s not fair. The children of this clan are defined by who their parents are. That’s why, when I’m the clan head, I’m going to change it.”
She stares at him. Of all the things she’d expected, this wasn’t one of them. She’d thought he’d be angry, hurt, likely both - never had she thought he’d be understanding.
“I don’t think I can do it alone, though,” Fugaku says, and he holds her gaze unflinchingly. “Will you help me?”
She doesn’t understand. “What could I possibly help with?”
Fugaku tilts his head slightly. “You’re the most powerful woman in the clan,” he says, like it’s obvious. “But more than that, you’re kind. It’s difficult for someone not to love you once they get to know you. You’re well-versed in politics, and you know exactly what it feels like to be looked down upon, which means you’ll fight to prevent anyone else from feeling that way. If we work together, I’m quite certain there’s nothing we won’t be able to accomplish eventually.”
Mikoto stares at him. She hadn’t thought he’d held her in such high esteem, and honestly, it’s grudgingly flattering. She feels her hate drain from her - it’s hard to hate someone who’s so devoted to bettering their clan, who sees the exact same deficiencies she does and wants to improve it.
“Very well,” Mikoto says. Fugaku’s expression doesn’t change, but she gets the impression that he’s relieved, somehow.
He smiles. “Partners?”
She nods. “Partners.”
~
It’s slow-going. It’s social change, so of course it’s slow, but there’s progress nonetheless. Mikoto cultivates her inter-clan contacts, seeking them out, making conversation, remembering the details of their lives. It’s manipulative, but it’s for a good cause, and it comes naturally to her - she loves chatting with the people on her street, loves finding out more about her fellow clansmen. Her circle of friends grows, and it’s exhilarating.
Meanwhile, Fugaku becomes clan head after his father’s killed in battle. He starts to change clan policy - no longer is clan financial support dependent on the number of full-blooded Uchiha in a household, no longer are stipends less for half-Uchiha in need. He takes the clan elders by storm, and it’s glorious.
They meet up every once in a while to update the other on their progress. The meetings are all business and purely professional, which is why she’s so surprised when he straight-up proposes to her a year later.
“I beg your pardon?” Mikoto doesn’t splutter - she’s too well-mannered for that - but it’s a close thing.
“Would you marry me?” Fugaku repeats obediently, and what is it about this man that always lets him surprise her?
“... Do couples not typically court each other prior to marriage?” Mikoto asks, her voice a little faint. What is happening? Is this some kind of joke?
He looks confused, heavy brows furrowing. “Have we not been courting for a year?”
“Not to my knowledge?” Mikoto says, hopelessly confused. She’s sure she would’ve remembered something like this.
“Ah.” His face falls in disappointment. “My apologies. I should have been more clear before.”
Mikoto doesn’t know what to say. It’s clear this isn’t a joke, not that she thought he’d be the type to joke like this anyway. Fugaku’s been under the impression that they’ve been - courting? For a year?
He straightens, expression turning earnest. “In that case, allow me to begin again: Uchiha Mikoto, would you allow me the honor of courting you?”
“I…” She falters. She’d be lying if she said she’d never thought about Fugaku like that before - though he’s not exactly classically handsome, he’s compassionate, and they share the same values and goals. And anyway, this isn’t a marriage proposal - this is a “let’s see if we get along” proposal.
“On one condition,” Mikoto says firmly, mind made up.
Fugaku nods. “Anything.”
Her heart skips a beat - really, just like that? Anything? She gets the impression that he really means it, too - she could ask for the world, and he’d do his best to give it to her. There’s something strangely heady about that idea.
Her lips twitch. Good thing for him she’s a better person than that. “Actually court me,” Mikoto says. “Ask me about my likes, my dislikes, my day. Seek me out for more than just professional reasons. Don’t just treat me like a business associate.”
“Ah,” Fugaku says, a little awkwardly. “I see. Yes. I can do that.”
Mikoto can’t help but smile. She really can’t be blamed for thinking he saw her purely platonically - he’d never given any indication of romantic feelings, after all. Now that she knows him better, though, she thinks he’d just been under the impression that she’d wanted to take things really slow, and was too awkward to bring it up.
What a dork.
~
To her surprise, it goes well. Very well. He’s still awkward, but his earnestness more than makes up for it. When a pretty bouquet of flowers catches her eye, he buys it for her, and then keeps on buying her flowers every week after he sees her joy at the first one. When she complains about how she’s been eating a lot of takeout recently because she can’t be bothered to cook, he shows up the next morning with a stack of bentos. He’s incredibly attentive, too - he seems to have this sixth sense on how to anticipate her needs and wants. When her mother dies, he’s there supporting her every step of the way.
She loves him, truly. He seems stoic, but he’s really, really not. Beneath his blank face lies a veritable ocean of emotion, and he has this way of soothing her with his mere presence. She no longer cares about proving herself to the elders - their opinions no longer matter. Instead, what matters is improving the lives of her fellow clanspeople and villagers. The burning fury and hatred within her has died, put out by Fugaku’s ocean. She’s become a better person because of him, and she loves him for that.
So, after another year, when he again asks her to marry him, Mikoto responds not with confusion but with a resounding yes. There is no one else she can see herself standing next to, no one else she can see herself with.
~
When Kushina, her dearest friend, first proposes having Mikoto’s nephew and Minato’s new apprentice meet, Mikoto is initially wary. The more she hears of Haruno Sakura, the more she is reminded of herself - the Uchiha clan elders will look down on Sakura for being civilian-born the same way they looked down on Mikoto for being the daughter of a non-Uchiha, and she worries that Haruno Sakura will carry the same hate within her that Mikoto once had. Shisui is such a sweet child - he doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of that hatred.
So she asks to speak with Minato, who knows Sakura personally. He’ll be biased, of course, but she can handle that.
The picture Minato paints for her is grim, though not in the way she’d expected. Sakura isn’t hateful, she’s lonely - a toddler with eyes too old, words too well-formed, developed far beyond her years.
And Mikoto’s heart aches. An undeniable prodigy, alienated from her peers - it’s familiar, but where Mikoto had Kushina, Sakura has no one.
She agrees to the playdate. She sees Shisui turn instantly shy at the sight of the tiny pink-haired girl, and she melts. She sees the girl gently draw him out of his shell, and she somehow melts even more, wishing desperately that Fugaku was there to see it, too. At the end, when they have to leave, Shisui is so visibly devastated that she invites Sakura over the next day. At least then, Fugaku can see this adorableness, too.
~
She fell in love with Fugaku slowly. It had been a steady, onwards march, until one day she’d woken up and realized she loved him. With Sakura, love comes quickly. Mikoto can’t help it - she’s so gentle, so kind, yet there’s an undeniable spine of steel under her that reminds Mikoto so much of herself and her mother it hurts.
She thinks, secretly, that if she has a daughter, she’d like her to be a lot like Sakura.
That’s why it’s so devastating when Sakura indirectly points out her deficiencies.
Mikoto knows she’s been failing Obito. She passes by his run-down excuse for a home each time she leaves the compound, and she hates it. He has no one, and as matriarch she should step in, but she can’t without the elders and the rest of the clan crucifying her.
She should’ve done so, anyway. She’d been wrong to think that there was nothing she could do. The truth of it is that she could’ve done something, she’d simply weighed the consequences and deemed it not worth it. She hadn’t wanted to go back to being Uchiha scum, being seen as less than.
She’s ashamed of herself, and she cries for the first time in years. Where had her passion gone? When had she gotten so bogged down in politicking and the opinions of others that she’d forgotten what was right? Obito is and was a child, and that should’ve superceded everything.
She does her best to make amends, but she knows it won’t ever be enough. She increases Obito’s stipend, makes an effort to get to know him more, and all the while she and Fugaku battle the elders to allow the adoption of Uchiha children by non-Uchiha.
She’s simultaneously grateful and ashamed that the Haruno family has taken him in. Grateful, because the boy needed it - and ashamed, because it should’ve been her and Fugaku. That’s why they’re fighting for out-of-clan adoption rights - Mikoto and Fugaku and the rest of the clan have already failed Obito, but the Harunos have not.
Mikoto is certain the policy will pass, and when it does, she will let the Harunos know that adopting Obito is now possible. She’s fairly sure they will - he’s already been adopted by them in all but name anyway - and then she will go to Obito and apologize for all that she’s wronged him.